West Park and Kew, 1841-1865. lxxxv 
pected. On the Monday forenoon he spent two hours with 
me in inspecting Battersea Park, then in formation; here he 
left me and walked part of the way back to Kew, meeting 
by appointment the Queen of the Sandwich Islands and 
the Rev. Mr. Berkeley, with both of whom he spent the 
whole afternoon in the Gardens. On Tuesday morning his 
servant came to tell me that his master could not swallow. 
I followed immediately, and found him perfectly well except 
for this paralysis of the muscles of deglutition. I at once 
sent to London for the best advice, but to no purpose. I saw 
him no more, for sleeping on the floor by his bedside that 
night, under an open window, I was suddenly prostrated with 
rheumatic fever. Meanwhile he gradually sank, suffering 
no pain nor feeling the want of nourishment ; and died from 
exhaustion, Saturday, August 12 , in his eighty-first year 1 . 
He was buried in the churchyard of St. Anne’s, Kew. A 
handsome tablet in the church with a central medallion pro- 
file by Woolner, and spandrels with groups of ferns in the 
corners, all in Wedgwood ware, record the dates of his birth, 
death, &c., with the motto, ‘ Thou, Lord, hast made me glad 
through Thy works. 5 
In person Sir William was over six feet high, erect, slim, 
muscular 2 ; forehead broad and high, but receding, hair nearly 
black, complexion sanguine, eyes brown, nose aquiline — had 
been broken in a school fight ; his mobile face, and especially 
mouth, was the despair of artists. Many chalk portraits of 
him were taken for friends by Sir Daniel Macnee 3 * , of which 
1 I have given these details because some of the published statements regarding 
the cause of his decease are erroneous. 
2 He was a vigorous pedestrian, covering 60 miles a day with ease. When 
taking the week’s end rest at Helensburgh, during his summer course of lectures, 
he habitually on Sunday walked to Glasgow, 22 miles, to be in time for his 
8 o’clock Monday morning class. 
3 Macnee was a youth of fourteen living in Glasgow when my father, who was 
one of his earliest patrons, went there. He made for the latter chalk portraits 
of Amott, Bentham, Allan and Richard Cunningham, Douglas, T. Drummond, 
Greville, A. Gray, Harvey, Richardson, Torrey, Wallich, and Wight ; all now 
hanging in the Museum of the Royal Gardens. Sir D. Macnee rose to be President 
of the Royal Scottish Academy of Arts in 1876. He died in 1882. 
